Ski or Snowboard Rentals – Whistler

Renting skis used to be a dreaded experience, long line ups for poorly maintained out of date equipment provided by ski bums who didn’t care. Changes have swept across this industry with new companies competing in every resort worldwide.

With airlines charging extra for ski baggage, the inconvenience of carrying heavy equipment and an increased environmental awareness the number of skiers renting equipment has risen.

If you look at ski technology and ski branding a two year old ski can often look outdated, therefore before you leave home do a quick calculation of “how many days a year do you ski?” multiplied by the cost of renting against the cost of new skis. The average cost of renting top end gear is around $50 CDN for two days. If you average 10 days per year that works out at $250 per year. New skis with bindings range from $500 to $1100.

Factor in the cost of tuning, inconvenience, baggage fees and your environmental consciences and renting comes out the winner.

My family decided to test this theory with a visit to Whistler in January, we looked online and booked with a company called Affinity Sports. (www.affinityrentals.com)

After breezing through the airport and traveling the sea to sky highway we checked into our hotel around 9pm. Surprisingly the rental shop was still open so despite our jet lag we headed in to pick up our gear. The staff greeted us on the way in the door and our reservation was ready. We tried on the boots and with skis hanging on every wall I picked out a new Pair of Volkl AC50. The binding was adjusted and the staff answered all our tourist questions while helping us feel welcome in Whistler. The kids tried snowboarding had to choose from a selection kids gear.

On the third day the weather moved in so we took a rest day, I dropped the skis back at the store and was surprised to learn I would be credited back the days I didn’t use. I then took advantage of the best reason to rent, trying different equipment. The trend in skis is to have more specialized equipment to suit the conditions so I changed for a K2 Coomba, a powder ski. Each time I dropped into see the staff at Affinity they accommodated my every request without hesitation. The equipment was tuned, it was the latest model and the service was excellent.

Two weeks later back at my desk I thought about the old rent vs. buy argument. I will be renting skis, snowboards and maybe even snow blades every time I go. The image of ski rentals is changing and being driven by companies like Affinity, I hope to go back to Whistler for the Olympics and will be renting everytime.

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• K2 JIBPAN AUTOGRAPHED SNOWBOARD
  
• K2 BINDINGS
  
• K2 BOOTS
  
• AIRBLASTER JACKET
  
• AIRBLASTER PANTS
  
• AIRBLASTER GOGGLES
  
• AIRBLASTER BEANIE
  
• DAKINE GLOVES
  
• NIXON WATCH

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• AUTOGRAPHED DC PBJ
  
• DC JACKET
  
• DC PANTS
  
• DC BOOTS
  
• GRENADE GLOVES
  
• ELECTRIC GOGGLES
  
• ROCKSTAR BEANIE
  
• CASE OF ROCKSTAR

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4^th Annual Jibassic Pro and Last Chance Season Pass Sale!

Donner Summit, CA, (October 23, 2008) –This Saturday, October 25 is you last chance to purchase a Boreal season pass for 20% off the regular price. Come check out the Jibassic Pro Invitational event that same day and stop by the ticket window to get your pass before it’s too late. Your dusty ski’s and snowboards will thank you. If you can’t make it up the hill on Saturday, don’t despair because you can get you pass online or by calling Boreal at 530-426-3666.

The JPI.4 gates will open at 2 p.m., admission is free. Check out swag from brands like Thirty-Two Boots, 686 Outerwear, Dakine, FUEL TV and grab a signature from one of your favorite pro shredders in the Sessions tent from 4-5 p.m. Food and beverages will be flowing and you’ll have a chance to win some gear while your hanging out before the pro’s throw down at 6 pm. Bring along your gear and don’t forget your helmet to cruise through the public Jib Park from 2-6 p.m. Admission to the Jib Park area is only $5.

For those of you wishing you could be a part of the Boreal staff, stop by the job fair and fill out an application with onsite interviews between 10 a.m.-2 p.m. For more details go to www.rideboreal.com.

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THE MESSAGE  - OCTOBER 2008

Hot Dawgs and Hand Rails

THE BLOCK BOOTCAMP 2008

Knock on Wood

Upcoming Events

Big Bear

Lake Tahoe

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The season kicked off this past weekend with the freestyle.ch in-city event in Zurich, Switzerland. For the snowboarding part of the action sports show, the biggest names in the game gathered on the lakeside of "Downtown Zurich“, including Burton shreds Mikkel Bang, Chris Sörman, Marko Grilc, Peetu Piiroinen, Wang Lei and last year's winner Stephan Maurer.

The Burton Euro Squad was busy all weekend throwing it down on the 37 meter tall ramp, the signing session marathons and the late night parties. And everybody scored at some point!

We will stick to talking about the official competition on snow here: Peetu Piiroinen opened his season like he ended the past one – on the podium! He only got beaten by Stephan Gimpl and Hampus Mosseson, and landed himself in the third spot with high scores for his Backside Rodeo 7 Tailgrab and Cab 1080.

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Freecaster will be bringing all this action live and in high quality straight from the Oakley booth on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and be sure to watch out for the interviews and highlights before and after from our team on site.

Timing
Friday 26 September 19:00 - 22:00 CET
Saturday 27 September 14:00 - 22:00 CET
Sunday 28 September 14:00 - 18:00 CET

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Late in the season, a common pastime among snowboarders is the infamous gaper hunt. After witnessing this activity in various places, I've been struggling with a very important question: what is the proper pronunciation of the word “gaper”. Everyone seems to have their own take on it and I'd like to take a little time to investigate the etymology of the word.

Conventional wisdom would have you look to a word's spelling to get an idea of how to pronounce it. Using this logic, the most obvious answer for the proper pronunciation is gey-per. If we look to the definition of a gaper, however, we're led to believe that the pronunciation doesn't follow standard english syntatical expectations.

It's like the ghosts of christmas past, present and future.

The Urban Dictionary defines a gaper as:

... a skier or snowboarder who is completely clueless. Usually distinguished by bright colored clothes and a gaper gap -- the gap between the goggles and a helmet/hat. Gaper's are known to do the "Gaper Tuck" which is an attempt at being a ski racer by tucking, however, it is done incorrectly with the poles sticking straight up like thunderbolts and lightning, very very frightening! Gapers also sit at the bottom of jumps and try and go big off table tops in the park.

From this definition, we're led to believe that the term gaper has its roots in the description of the gap for which they are known. From this, one would assume that the correct pronunciation of the word is in fact gap-per. So the confusion is understandable when trying to figure out how to properly pronounce the term.

The Urban Dictionary, however, also provides another definition for the word GAPER as “an acronym that stand[s] for Guaranteed Accident Prone on Every Run.” This definition has no reference to the distinctive gaper gap which seems to be one of the roots of the word. If we rely on this definition, there is no need to break the rules of syntax and the word can be pronounced gey-per.

Gaper in Other Contexts

The word gaper also has meanings in other contexts. Wikipedia describes gapers as stone heads, often depicting a black man, located on the fronts of buildings in the Netherlands to indicate that these building are pharmacies. The gaper represents the assistant of the travelling apothecary who was the forefather of the modern pharmacist. This assistant would pretend to be a sick man only to miraculously feel better (and perform a dance) after taking the pill given to him by the apothecary. So in the Netherlands, the word Gaper is somewhat representative of a charlatan. This relates to the modern definition of the word since gaper's in ski resorts will often profess to a higher degree of skill than they actually have. This doesn't help in the search for the correct pronunciation of the word, however, since I don't speak the Dutch language.

The simplest definition of a gaper that I have found so far, is “a person or thing that gapes”¹. This definition actually provides a phonetic spelling for the word, which is in fact gey-per, as one would expect. This description also agrees with the more colloquial definition of the word as gapers are often seen in the middle of Whistler Village, in their rear-entry boot and neon one-piece glory, gaping at the scenery through the lense of a camera (that is when they aren't seen as a streak of neon laying down wide carves on the cat track).

The Verdict

Following this long and arduous Google search, I think the question of the pronunciation of the word gaper can finally be laid to rest. I motion that the correct pronunciation heretofore be gey-per; don't let anyone tell you otherwise. If they insist on pronouncing it gap-per, refer them to this study which should convince them that they are wrong-headed. Although this study cannot be considered complete by any stretch of the imagination, I'm pretty confident that it is the most in-depth investigation into the etymology of the word gaper that you'll be able to find (I'm not sure if that makes me sad or proud).

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April 22, 2008 I wake up and look at my clock which sais 1:00 PM Whao, how did I sleep till one, and how come my mom didn’t give me crap for sleeping so long? is the first thing that comes to mind. Then my mom walks in and starts rambullshi*ting about how the breaker jumped and i have to many things plugged in. So I go to the kitchen to check the time, turns out it was just 9:48  So I set my clock, then the phone rings. After a short chat on the phone my mom sais “ Dad called he’s coming with the tractor go shovel the decks.” It had finally stopped snowing after about three days of heavy snowing. I didn’t think there would be very much snow, but when I walk out I found myself waddling in two foot tall drifts all the way down the side walk. Once I got to the garage I was standing beside a 5 foot tall drift of snow. Haha, winters back! I think I was the only one who though this big dump of snow was awesome, everyone else was like damn it. While shoveling the snow I take a quick look at my hill in the back yard, sweet there enough snow on it to shred so I make up my mind to go hit it after I was done. Work then play, so I finish up, get my gear and walk to the hill. My little sis and bro were following me but they had to stop since the snow was so deep my little sis couldn’t  get though. So I get to the hill and it turns out that there’s only snow on half of it, so I only had half a hill to shred, but it made it easier to walk up. Once on top and strapped in I head down and get stopped by a big drift. Well that was lame. I go back up and try it again, this time I make it down and hit my little blue barrel.  Then I see my bro coming back and he sais “The snow is so deep you could do like back flips and not get hurt!” I then decided to build a jump and try. So I unstrapped and head out in search for something to build a jump with. (since the last time I built a jump with just snow it was tiny, and took for ever to make.) We look around for a bit and see nothing. So we decide to start building the jump anyway. On the way I spot some bails, perfect!  My bro sais “there some right by the hill we just have to dig them out.” We find the bails no problem. Three square bails made up the base of our jump, we piled snow on it for about an hour and my bro was tired and cold so he went in. I finished up the jump, then pushed and packed the snow in a line down to the jump. Every time I looked back there was always something that needed fixing, but I was starving so I had to go in. Right when I get to the door I see my brother standing there with a grilled cheese and ham sandwich in his hand. He sais “I was brining you some food!” What a sweet little bro lol. But I had already taken my boots off, so I went in and had some soup with my sandwich. It was past two when I got in. Around 3:00 my brother and I headed back out to try out the jump. I walk up, hit the jump and don’t even get enough speed to get over it. I try again, and same thing is repeated. So we shave down a little bump, that I had made to help me go faster, but it just slowed me down. I hit it again and got over, but I just drop of the end. We do an bunch more trial and error, then we get called in by my mom. I didn’t even get a good jump in and it was already supper time. The next day I’m determined to fix the jump. I look around the yard to try and think of something. I walked over to my little sisters fisher price slide, and get an idea. I take the slide part off, and haul the base (Which is 4ish feet tall, 2ish feet wide and 3ish feet long.) to the top of the hill. I packed it down, cover the top in snow and tadah, a steeper hill! I get up, strap in and drop. Problem fixed! I hit it a few more times, go in for supper, then go back out till dark. The next day, my big sistah tried it out. After about 5 minutes of saying “Omg your retarded, who would build such a thing? Are you serious? Your on crack!” she hit the jump. She then hit it a bunch more times. After I convinced her to give me my board back, she made me jump over her. Crazy gurl! The first two times I bailed, I was sure something stupid would happen. But I finally got over it and jumped over her no prob…so I did it again lol. Then she jumped over me, I’ll admit it was a little bit scary! And the day was over. Even though the hills are shut we still shred!        

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